Caramel Sauce

So I posted on Facebook about this sauce and it really is soooo good. Like amazingly good. Like sneak bites in the middle of the night good. Like so good I don't feel guilty bout pouring it directly into my mouth good. Okay I do feel guilty, just not guilty enough to not do it. =D I think you get the idea.

I will not lie. This not an original recipe by me. I stole it from Ina Garten. Wait...can you steal something that a person posts online with the intention of people using it?? Hmmm....  I GOT this from Ina Garten's Food Network site. I am a Food Network junkie. There are many cooks that I love (Anne Burrell, Giada De Laurentiis, Alton Brown, Nigella Lawson, Ina) and some that I wouldn't be sad to be stranded on a deserted island with (Robert Irvine). ;)  It's okay, my husband knows I think he's hot.

Anyway, Ina Garten is one of my favorites. She doesn't pretend that her food is a snap. She's realistic about how sometimes her food takes a long time. She doesn't claim that it will be so fast,  but forget to tell you about the 3 1/2 hours of prep work that is magically done through the beauty that is TV editing.

Okay. Enough with my love of all things Food Network. This is why you came to this post: The recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Mix the water and sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook over low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, until the sugar dissolves. Do not stir. 

Increase the heat to medium and boil uncovered until the sugar turns a warm chestnut brown (about 350 degrees F on a candy thermometer).  Gently swirl the pan to stir the mixture. Be careful – the mixture is extremely hot! [Her recipe says about 5 to 7 minutes. It is never that quick on my stove. It's really more like 20. So make sure you are watching it carefully.] 

Watch the mixture very carefully at the end, as it will go from caramel to burnt very quickly. Turn off the heat. Stand back to avoid splattering and slowly add the cream and vanilla. Don't worry - the cream will bubble violently and the caramel will solidify.

Simmer over low heat, stirring constantly, until the caramel dissolves and the sauce is smooth, about 2 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature, at least 4 hours. It will thicken as it sits.

My husband likes the sauce thicker than this recipe makes. so I use 1 cup of cream and let it simmer for a little longer. But that's just me. I would make this recipe as written first, then change it. Caramel can really go from fabulous to horrid in such a short time. And burnt caramel = sad.

Meetings Meetings meetings!!

So in my job it's all about the meetings. I will sometimes have 10 or more meetings in a week. Which has been my last three weeks in a row (whew! I'm exhausted). There are even times in my life that I have meetings to prepare for meetings, about meetings. No really. I do. I'm not just making that up to sound silly.

I've decided my meeting rich life needed something to make these meetings a little less...yicky. And what better way to yum up a boring old meeting than a cupcake?!

One of my friends/coworkers said she wanted chocolate, and I really wanted a coffee something. So I did a chocolate cupcake with espresso frosting and a chocolate covered espresso bean on top. Holy Moly were they good!! I  would have eaten all 24, but I would have been up for a week straight and had a tummy ache. We're not talking about the calories involved.

Actually my friends and  I have this running joke about calories: If you break open food before you eat it, all the calories fall out. So that cupcake? Cut it in half and the calories just fall onto the plate! Those chips? Just open the bag and out those pesky little suckers fall. If only that were true.... sigh!

So for the frosting I simply added a few teaspoons of instant coffee and a pinch of salt to my butter cream. Yes the salt really is important. It cuts the bitterness of the coffee. Bitter frosting? No thank you.

Really so easy.

It has been a CRAZY few weeks!

Wow. These last three weeks have been nutter butters around here!! Okay really it's been nutters for me. Work is wild and by the time I get home I just haven't had the energy to post. BUT, I have been keeping up with my domestic self challenge. What have I been up to you ask? Well let's see....